Cleveland Lays Groundwork for Shovel-Ready Sites Along Opportunity Corridor

By: Michelle Jarboe, Crain's 

Cleveland hopes to devote $8 million to site assembly and cleanup along the Opportunity Corridor, in a project that could be a template for creating shovel-ready sites.

Half of that money would come from the city, which is drawing on $3.5 million in federal pandemic-relief funds to cover most of its costs. The rest would flow from JobsOhio, the state's private nonprofit economic development corporation, in the form of matching grants.

Officials are making use of a JobsOhio program that offers low-cost loans and grants for speculative site preparations and building projects. The idea is to fill gaps in the market and put Cleveland in a better position to pursue growing companies that need to move fast.

The city's first target is the New Economy Neighborhood in Fairfax, at the northern end of the Opportunity Corridor. The city and nonprofit partner Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp. control a substantial amount of land in that district, southeast of the Cleveland Clinic's main campus. JobsOhio already has committed $2 million to that project.

"We're looking to get to approximately 15 to 20 acres there," said Bryce Sylvester, senior director of site strategies for Team NEO, a regional economic development organization.

The other high-priority sites could be in the Kinsman and Central neighborhoods.

One is the wedge-shaped property where the city once planned to build its new police headquarters, off East 75th Street north of the Opportunity Corridor. Another is land sandwiched between Woodland Avenue and Kinsman Road, near East 55th Street, where local investors Bob and Mac Biggar have floated the idea of a 20- to 30-acre business park.

Economic development officials are reluctant to talk about potential sites in detail, for fear of setting off real estate speculation. But those properties, along with active and planned developments along the boulevard, appeared in a presentation submitted to Cleveland City Council.

Jeff Epstein, the city's chief of integrated development, described the investments along Opportunity Corridor as the first phase of a broader push around sites. "This is the start of a strategy," he told council members in late January.

Council voted Monday, Feb. 6, to allow Mayor Justin Bibb's administration to allocate $3.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funds to Opportunity Corridor projects. The economic development department will contribute $550,000 to round out the package.

That money will help Cleveland assemble and prepare two or three sites of at least 10 acres, officials said.

The model, of layering ARPA money with funding from JobsOhio and other sources, is one that the city expects to replicate in other locations.

"We're prepared to make a substantial investment of ARPA dollars in this beyond these sites," Epstein told council members. "We're doing work right now to make sure that is fully fleshed out, that we have leverage lined up and committed, and that we are ready to go."

The city is focused on sites that aren't already in developers' hands — and that need heavy lifting, from environmental cleanup and demolition to lot consolidations and elimination of city streets.

The city is analyzing its own real estate portfolio through Putting Assets to Work, a pilot program designed to help local governments tap the value of underused properties. In a separate effort, the city's brownfields specialist is trying to map blighted properties to flag sizable sites that Cleveland could pursue through tax foreclosure or state forfeiture.

The administration also is part of a much bigger, regional conversation around sites, including a Team NEO effort to find six to 10 potential sites in Cuyahoga and Summit counties. Team NEO is working with Allegro Real Estate Brokers & Advisors on that project, which could yield a list of target properties by summer.

"Some of the sites we turn up, at least one or two, will be outside of the Opportunity Corridor but nearby," said Michael Cantor, an Allegro principal, and president and chairman. "We're just not ready to talk about that yet."

The 3-mile Opportunity Corridor, which links Interstate 490 to University Circle, opened in late 2021. The road cuts across a forlorn section of the city, where dilapidated buildings and trash-strewn expanses of vacant land separate gap-toothed residential streets.

The Bibb administration is focused on industrial and commercial development that will create jobs for residents in the surrounding neighborhoods. Officials are talking about food production and distribution, modern manufacturing and logistics. They view the corridor as a gateway to additional investment in the city's long-suffering southeast side.

The administration recently laid out criteria for the projects it will support: businesses that will create 20-plus jobs per acre; offer employment at a range of skill levels; commit to hiring city residents; and pay a living wage, with benefits.

The city also wants developers to talk with residents early on and to enter into community benefits agreements, which are likely to be a major topic of discussion at council in the coming months. The administration will put a premium on deals with businesses and developers who are committed to sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion.

"We're not just trying to be deal-takers. We're trying to be deal-makers in these conversations," said Tessa Jackson, the city's economic development director, during a recent council committee hearing.

Developers and growing companies already have tied up several Opportunity Corridor sites.

Those properties include land in Fairfax, south of Cedar Avenue, where construction is well underway on a Meijer neighborhood market and apartments. In Kinsman, the massive Cleveland Cold Storage warehouse is slated to open this summer on the south side of the corridor, off East 79th Street.

West of East 55th and south of Woodland, Beachwood-based TurnDev continues to hone its plans for a commerce park. A few blocks south, past Interstate 490, Premier Development Partners and the Abrams family have been pitching a 10.9-acre site for food processing, with freezer and cooler space.

Premier, based in Independence, also is pursuing another Opportunity Corridor site, at 10101 Woodland Ave. closer to the eastern end of the boulevard. The city and nonprofit Cleveland Neighborhood Progress own that 9.5-acre parcel and have been in talks with Premier for over a year.

"We are working toward a purchase agreement," Epstein confirmed in a recent interview.

Real estate broker George Pofok, who has been marketing that land and other property near the corridor, said public-sector attention to site assembly and cleanup is critical.

"If you're just trying to paint a picture and say, well, we could do this, people tend not to be interested," said Pofok, a principal at Cushman & Wakefield-Cresco Real Estate. "They want to know that it's for real. And they want a distinct timeline of when they can do something."

He's impressed by the amount of traffic on the boulevard but disheartened by litter and dead landscaping along the road — conditions that make it harder to sell investors on the vision.

The city's onetime police headquarters site, which officials dropped last year in favor of the historic ArtCraft Building in the Superior Arts District, is overgrown. It's not being advertised yet for private development. Epstein said the city will either hire a broker to market land along the corridor or solicit developers by issuing requests for proposals.

The property in Central, between Woodland and Kinsman, is likely to be the subject of a request for proposals during the first half of this year, he said. That area has the potential to become the largest developable site near the corridor.

Another project in the area, the Construction Opportunity Institute of Cleveland, has not moved forward.

Cleveland City Council approved legislation in December 2021, in the waning days of former Mayor Frank Jackson's administration, allowing the city to enter a lease-purchase deal for the 9-acre site with a company tied to Norman Edwards of the Black Contractors Group and retired contractor Fred Perkins.

But that lease still isn't in place. Perkins said that he and Edwards have not been able to agree on deal terms with the Bibb administration. Without site control, they're struggling to secure financing for the nonprofit training school.

"If the city doesn't buy into this, I can't do the project on my own. I'm not rich. We need the support," said Perkins, who scrapped plans to include concrete and asphalt plants in the project in 2021 after encountering fierce pushback from civic groups and some members of council.

 
Epstein said discussions about the construction institute are ongoing.

"We are working … on a lease-purchase agreement that offers them the chance to put together a deal on that site and are supportive of the broad vision that they've articulated," he said.

Closer to Fairfax, the city and Team NEO are talking to a potential user about a narrow strip of land just north of the corridor, between East 93rd Street and Quincy Avenue. Epstein would not identify the business.

"The company that's interested had a vision to have medical cold storage, which was an interesting component from our perspective because of the proximity to health care," Sylvester said.

The New Economy Neighborhood, meanwhile, was earmarked years ago for technology and research buildings, with ground-floor retail at visible corners. Denise VanLeer, Fairfax Renaissance's executive director, did not respond to inquiries about potential development in the district, east of the corridor.

Bethia Burke, president of the Fund for Our Economic Future, said she's encouraged by the city's heightened focus on sites and increased collaboration among public officials, Team NEO, the Greater Cleveland Partnership, nonprofit community development corporations and other groups. She's convinced that site assembly and preparation is, quite possibly, the most important thing that Northeast Ohio can do to advance economic development.

 
"If we want jobs to come to Cleveland, they need a place to land," she said. "This is a point when it feels like we are making real traction, the city is making real traction, around what had long been the promise of bringing jobs to the corridor."